Tuesday, June 17, 2025

The Day After - Tao Of Rory Edition

I'm just finding the post-Master version of Rory to be inexplicable and maddening.  And given that I wasn't exactly high on the guy for being LIV's Useful Idiot™, I find myself unmoved my his existential navel gazing.... All I can see is the self-absorption and hypocrisies.

The dilemma is, where to begin.  When Rory prevailed at Augusta the reaction was immediate, with the monkey off his back he would be freed up and the sky would be the only limit.  Since Masters Sunday, has Rory looked unburdened to you, Dear Reader?  Has he arrived at events unburdened by his albatross?  Or has he looked churlish and truculent?  

Here's just one data point:

Rory McIlroy smashes U.S. Open tee marker, throws club, skips media after making cut

Rory McIlroy made two late birdies on Friday evening to make the cut at the 2025 U.S. Open. But if you think that made him happy, well, not necessarily. McIlroy’s frustration also boiled over in Round 2 at Oakmont, climaxing with the Masters champion smashing a tee marker with his club.

Before that McIlroy was caught tomahawk-throwing his club, and post-round, McIlroy again refused USGA requests to meet with the media.

Fortunately, your humble blogger is  a glass-half-full kind of guy, so I'll just take comfort in the fact that he destroyed that tee marker with what is presumably a conforming club.  Win-win, baby!

To be fair, this was no little love tap:

Would have loved to see the shrapnel hit a fan, instead of himself.  But Rory, even off his game, managed to maintain his fundamentals, at least those espoused by Tommy Bolt:

"Always throw your golf club ahead of you so you don't have to waste energy going back for them."

And I think you'll agree that in the following videos that each of Rory's positions is just textbook:

Got a joke for you.  Rory McIlroy walks into a bar and the bartender says, "Why the long face?"  OK, less a joke than a serious question, why at the acme of his golfing life is he acting like a spoiled brat?

Eamon Lynch has an interesting take on his countryman, though I find some of the filler more interesting than his conclusions, beginning with this from Masters Sunday:

Shortly afterward, an elated McIlroy opened his press conference with a question that poked fun at the previous decade of inquiries about whether he would win a green jacket: “What are we all going to talk about next year?” :

Who is this "We" you speak of?  Obviously you don't intend to talk to anyone about anything....

McIlroy never took time to fully process that seismic accomplishment. Ten days later, he was at the Zurich Classic playing with Shane Lowry, having made a trip to London and Northern Ireland
in between. Then it was on to the Truist Championship and straight into another major at the PGA Championship. By comparison, when Tiger Woods won the Masters in ’97, and also in ’19, he did not make a competitive appearance for five weeks.

McIlroy has been asked what comes next several times since the Masters. Even earlier this week at Oakmont, he was asked what his plan is for the coming years. “I don't have one. I have no idea,” he said. “I’m sort of just taking it tournament by tournament at this point. Yeah, I have no idea.”

It was disarmingly honest, but alarming for those who fetishize the mentality epitomized by Tiger Woods, a single-mindedness that moves shark-like between feasts without enjoyment or even digestion. It's a sentiment that celebrates racking up accomplishments, but not of taking actual pleasure in those victories. Earlier this year, McIlroy said one of his goals for ’25 was to have more fun. It’s why he went to a soccer game in Bilbao with friends, why he wants to play in India and Australia later this year. Yet somewhere along the way, he denied himself the time to have fun celebrating the greatest achievement of his career.

The bolding is mine, but the irony, she burns.  Who would have bet that he would win the Masters and yet look so miserable thereafter? 

The gist of Eamon's column is in this header:

Lynch: Rory McIlroy had three goals in 2025. He’s achieved the first, now on to the second

In a casual conversation a few months back, he summarized his objectives for the year: win the Masters, win the Open at Royal Portrush, win an away Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black. As he prepared to leave Pittsburgh, McIlroy acknowledged fresh motivation is on the horizon for the second item on that list.

Do we know what kind of tee markers will be at Portrush?  because he might want to dial back the poutiness for the home crowd.

Mike Bamberger takes his own shot at what in heck is going on:

Why Rory McIlroy’s sudden frostiness is so jarring

Beginning at Quail Hollow:

Then, on the eve of the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow, he was told that his driver, the driver with which he won the Masters, did not pass the USGA’s conformance test. The face, degrading over time, had become too thin. On the Friday of the PGA Championship, there was a report about this failed driver on SiriusXM PGA Tour radio. And since then, from the outside looking in, Rory McIlroy — beloved Rory McIlroy, with his six majors and his career Grand Slam and his wife and young daughter and devoted parents and discreet caddie and his South Florida pals — appears to be on an epic run of. . .cranky.

And it’s kind of a freak-out moment for possibly millions of people because . . .

If this guy is cranky, with all he’s achieved and all that he has, what chance do the rest of us have?

If you follow men’s professional golf closely, you know about the smashed tee marker at Oakmont. You know about the half-dozen times he has blown by various reporters who have covered him with a detectable delight for years, while giving his private life a wide berth. You know about his uninspired play since the Masters.

Something is going on here. Could it just be the non-conforming driver and how the news of it eked out? That just seems so unlikely. That would seem like an overreaction.

The more so since they insist that they can't know that the equipment has slipped into the red zone, though Mike does seem to be willfully ignoring the implications of the failed test, to wit, that the career slam was tainted.

So Rory did deign to speak to the media after his Saturday round, but should he have?

McIlroy talked to reporters after his Saturday 74. It was like a divorced couple having a court-mandated conference in chambers. The first question was posed by Stephen Watson, a veteran sports reporter and anchor for BBC Northern Ireland, a notably staid news organization.

“Can you give us an assessment of your U.S. Open so far?” Watson asked.

McIlroy’s two-word answer, and the long, excruciating pause that followed it, told you loads about his state of mind.

“Pretty average,” he said, as if the BBC Northern Ireland audience, and millions of other people beyond its reach, don’t have the right to know more.

I don’t want to turn this into one another self-absorbed media v. famous athlete contretemps. There’s way too much of that, everywhere. My view is that Collin Morikawa is lucky that people are actually interested in what he does as a professional golfer. But if he doesn’t want to share insights into his experiences on any given day, that’s up to him. For Rory or any of the others, the same. I have great respect for Tiger Woods, that he stood up there round after round, when golf was easy for him and when it was not, and took questions. And the times he didn’t, no big whoop.

But this feels different. For over 15 years now, we, reporters and fans, have made this investment in caring about Rory McIlroy, the person and the golfer, in good times and bad. And we’re finding out now the feeling is not always mutual. That, at the very least, is disappointing. From the person who just two months ago won the Masters and became the sixth golfer to win the career Grand Slam. Weird, weird, weird.

So there’s that, and there’s also something much more significant, and it’s one of the trickiest things in the human experience: Can you be in regular, meaningful contact with your own sense of gratitude? That’s a question for Rory McIlroy, for you, for your correspondent, for anybody and everybody. It’s a universal.

The last question a reporter asked McIlroy on Saturday afternoon was this: “What do you look for tomorrow?”

“Hopefully a round in under four and a half hours and get out of here,” McIlroy said.

I realize that’s a quick and annoyed answer to a question of no particular depth. But it is insulting to the hundreds of USGA officials and volunteers who work so hard to put on this tournament, and the Oakmont members and the club’s hundreds of employees. To the people who prepare the food he and others ate here, who cleaned the toilets he and others used here, who provided the security and the first-tee welcoming and everything else. It is the answer of an entitled person not in touch with the fundamental value of gratitude. (Asked Saturday whether he felt like he has the right to decline post-round interview requests, McIlroy said, “I feel like I’ve earned the right to do whatever I want to do.”) I’m not judging. Believe me, I’ve been there myself, acting uppity and important. I try to be aware. Here, with Rory, I’m observing, is all. We see what we see. I’m guessing it’s a passing mood.

Guessing or hoping, Mike?

But I'm going to disagree strongly with Mike on the Morikawa issue, but boy is that an odd way to frame it.  I think we all have a sense that there will be moments, such as when Morikawa kicked away a golf tournament, that we want to give them a pass because we know they're taking it hard.

But look at how Collin and Rory treat us.  Collin can't just acknowledge that he had a tough moment.  No, he needs to say to us "Don't you know who I am?"  I don't owe you anything.....

As for Rory, he has said in plain English that he will only speak to the media when it suits his mood, and I also find it interesting the Mike elides the most confrontational thing Rory said:

Reporter: “You’re so transparent for us and very available. Yesterday was six major rounds in a row you’ve stepped away. Has that been part and parcel to the frustration on the golf course? What do you attribute it to?”
McIlroy: “No, not really. It’s more a frustration with you guys.”

Reporter: “In what way?”
McIlroy: “I’m just, yeah, I don’t know. I have, I’ve been totally available for the last few years, and I’m not saying — maybe not you guys, but maybe more just the whole thing.”

Reporter: “Did it stem from the whole driver thing?”
McIlroy: “Yeah, part of — I mean, that was a part of it. Yeah, that was a part of it. But it’s not as if — like at Augusta I skipped you guys on Thursday, so yeah, again, it’s not if as if — it’s not out of the ordinary. I’ve done it before; I’m just doing it a little more often.”

Reporter: “Is it part of the, you kind of carried the Tour, in your words, for three, four years now. Do you feel like you’ve earned the right?”
McIlroy: “I feel like I’ve earned the right to do whatever I want to do, yeah.”

Reporter: “You have, in relation to that, almost addressed the fact that the Tour does not require that kind of thing. It’s almost like you’re daring them to do so in some way. Is that, you know, in terms of a requirement of the players?”
McIlroy: “No, I’m not daring them to do anything. I hope they don’t change it because it would, you know — this is, it’s a nice luxury to have. But I’m just pointing out the fact that we have the ability to do it.”

Rory, I'm old enough to remember when you pretended to care about the game.  Now we understand that you're caring about Rory......  Funny thing, though, is that I still care about the game, but no longer care about a certain Ulsterman.

James Colgan takes his won shot at it:

Rory McIlroy’s U.S. Open theatrics ended on a strange note

While Rory McIlroy’s performance at this week’s U.S. Open was many things — strange, tumultuous, disappointing, mystifying — there is little debating that it was also very good theater.

The rising acts came on Thursday and Friday, when McIlroy ejected from contention by tossing
clubs, shattering tee markers and shirking the press. Those moments built toward Saturday afternoon, the climax, when McIlroy surprised reporters with a bizarrely combative press conference in which he largely blamed them for his absence. They culminated on Sunday — the falling action — when McIlroy shot a breezy 3-under, spoke again on much cheerier terms, and exited into the night with a smile on his face.

If McIlroy’s U.S. Open were a movie, it would not score high points for plot clarity. Nobody in the golf world knows what’s peeving the Masters champion these days. Fewer still know what changed between Saturday and Sunday, other than perhaps his score and his travel schedule, to justify the shift in tone. We can surmise he isn’t thrilled with the coverage around his failed driver test at the PGA Championship, and is still wrangling with a green jacket/grand slam hangover, but neither of these actions fit the crime of detonating media relations after 18 years of thoughtful introspection. The larger machinations are hard to understand.

Still, if McIlroy’s U.S. Open were a movie, you’d keep watching. Perhaps not with the rapt attention you tuned in to Augusta National in April, but with the morbid intrigue you might find while consuming a Greek tragedy.

In many ways, McIlroy’s post-Masters life has been distinctly Promethean. Much like the story of the Titan who discovered fire, McIlroy’s history-changing gain appears to have come at a price. Thankfully, the press — and the golf press in particular — are friendlier punishment than a bird trained to eat his liver, but it is not hard to see the parallel. For McIlroy, the daily questions are a reminder of the difference between fulfillment and happiness. After Augusta he will forever have the former, but at Oakmont he seemed to be missing the latter.

Don't think he's acting very fulfilled, but maybe James sees something different.  But this bit sounds strange to my ears:

“Look, I climbed my Everest in April,” McIlroy said on Sunday. “I think after you do something like that, you’ve got to make your way back down, and you’ve got to look for another mountain to climb.”

McIlroy suggested that Royal Portrush, the hometown site of this year’s Open Championship, could be the new mountain he seeks — and perhaps he is right. But from the side of the clubhouse at Oakmont on Sunday afternoon, the drama of U.S. Open week seemed to be about much more than a golf course.

In many ways, this week was always about more than McIlroy’s failure to talk to the press. There has been plenty made of his absence already, but few words were more poignant than those of McIlroy’s good friend, the Golf Channel analyst Paul McGinley, during Saturday evening’s Live From.

“I didn’t enjoy [his comments]. I don’t like to see it,” McGinley said. “When he does that, because people look up to him, a conference like that with his body language and short language doesn’t serve him right. I’m disappointed for Rory that it’s come to that. Something is eating at him. He hasn’t let us know what it is, but there’s something not right.”

Rather, McIlroy’s U.S. Open was really about the final part of McGinley’s analysis, about what serves Rory. After a decade of torment and many, many painful press conferences, it does not serve McIlroy to live out his days battling a media cold war like the protagonist in a Greek tragedy. It serves McIlroy to live comfortably with the fulfillment he worked so hard to achieve — to not just star in his story but enjoy it, too.

A letdown was inevitable, no?   I thought those folks suggesting that the major floodgates would immediately open for him were naïve in the extreme, but the bigger is issue is why is he so miserable?

Before we wind down, I left this from the Tour Confidential panel on the side yesterday:

It was an odd week for Rory McIlroy, who declined to speak with the media after his first two rounds — “It’s more a frustration with you guys,” he said Saturday — and who finished in a tie for 19th place and failed to contend for the fifth straight start since his Masters win. He also reiterated that it has been difficult at times to stay motivated following the career Grand Slam. How would you unpack McIlroy’s week, and why do you think he’s still struggling so much with finding that motivation?

Sens: McIlroy came across as mentally unready before the week began, and he proved that he wasn’t in a great head space when his opening round on Thursday started coming unraveled. In one sense, it seemed odd. In another, it seemed very typical of McIlroy: when he’s on, boy is he on. But when he’s not quite right, he’s not going to contend in the way that, say, Scottie Scheffler does when he doesn’t have his A game. As for motivation, McIlroy has said it himself. It is tough to keep grinding at that level when you’ve achieved everything you’ve always dreamed of. I can relate. As a child, my greatest ambition was to someday take part in an online forum offering armchair analyses of lavishly paid professional athletes. And now here I am, so satisfied I can barely bring myself to finish typi . . .

Melton: It seems Rory has some post-achievement depression. After over a decade of trying to accomplish one of his life goals, the comedown seems to have him in a funk. It’s a bit odd how he’s handled the media during this slump, and I can’t help but wonder if there’s something more to the story than he’s letting on. I’m sure we’ll all find out one day.

Schrock: I think because as human beings we aren’t wired to have just one purpose, one goal that leads to everlasting actualization. David Duval famously won The Open and wondered if that was “it” on the flight back. Kevin Durant hoisted a trophy with the Warriors and was more lost than ever. It’s up to Rory to find, as he put it, another “Everest” to climb. He will. It might take time. He’s human, just like the rest of us. Has it been “disappointing” that his post-Masters run has been so flat and filled with an unnecessary feud with a golf media that has given him almost two decades of glowing coverage? Absolutely. But eventually, Rory McIlroy will finish digesting achieving one lifelong dream and move on to the next pursuit.

Hirsh: Schrock, I think you hit the nail on the head here. The last few weeks, McIlroy’s struggles have me thinking back on a chapter from one of Bob Rotella’s — who is also McIlroy’s mental coach — books. In the first chapter of Golf is Not a Game of Perfect, Rotella talks about how wonderful it was to work with Pat Bradley — Keegan’s aunt — because she always was focused on qualifying for the LPGA Hall of Fame, which is one of the most difficult halls of fame to qualify for. Once Pat won for the 30th time in 1991 to qualify for the Hall of Fame, she asked Rotella what she should do to find her next dream. She didn’t win again until 1995, which was the last of her career. It’s ironic that McIlroy works with the same coach now. Do I think it will take him four years to win again? No. But, it seems like he is having trouble identifying what his dream will be moving forward now that he has checked off the Masters, which he was trying to nab for 11 years. It will take time.

Was it an odd week, or is this the new Rory?

We all get that he'll have to refocus his competitive juices, and none of us really care how he plays in the short-term.  The bigger question is, has he always been this big of an asshat, or is something else going on?   

Dylan Dethier has one last take from his Monday Finish column:

3. Rory vs. the Media.

I know part (all?) of the job is to react to stuff that happens, but although I am fascinated by this latest chapter of Rory McIlroy vs. the media I do not condone the collective handwringing we’ve done as an industry around it. Is something up with Rory? Sure. But my instinct is that any over-the-top reactions we make in real time about his relationship with the media or whatever may age like a glass of milk. Let’s come back to this at some point when we know just a little bit more. In the meantime, here’s my favorite quote about athletes talking to media, from Andre Agassi’s biography, which I think about constantly:

“I can’t imagine all these people trying to be like Andre Agassi, since I don’t want to be Andre Agassi. Now and then I start to explain this in an interview, but it never comes out right. I try to be funny, and it falls flat or offends someone. I try to be profound, and I hear myself making no sense. So I stop, fall back on pat answers and platitudes, tell journalists what they seem to want to hear. It’s the best I can do. If I can’t understand my motivations and demons, how can I hope to explain them to journalists on deadline?

“To make matters worse, journalists write down exactly what I say, while I’m saying it, word for word, as if this represented the literal truth. I want to tell them, Hold it, don’t write that down, I’m only thinking out loud here. You’re asking about the subject I understand least — me. Let me edit myself, contradict myself. But there isn’t time. They need black-and-white answers, good and evil, simple plot lines in seven hundred words, and then they’re on to the next thing.“

(And that was pre-social media!)

I included it because it's interesting, though not necessarily illuminating.  I get why Rory finds the media off-putting, but it's quite obviously part of the job.  Yes, the Tour (and five families) have given them wiggle room on a day-by-day basis, but Rory has basically threatened that he will only address the media when he feels the love.   Over to you, tournament sponsors?  Does that sound like a sustainable model?  Isn't as the reporter above suggested, likely that Rory will force the Tour's hands? 

I for one am reexamining my take on Rory.  He has said in plain English that going forward he will do exactly as he pleases, so I will be watching what that entails and how the governing bodies respond.  But the implication is that Rory will be allowed to fly his freak flag, and how do we think that affects the PGA Tour fan experience?  

Which leads to an inevitable conclusion about our Rory.  That it was, in fact, never about growing the game or strengthening the Tour, it was about doing what Rory damn well pleases.  Noted.

See you guys down the road.  Have a great week.

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